


All Things Grow, All Things Grow

by samanthawithlute



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Before he was an idol, Chicago, Drinking, Gen, Going Home, I don't remember everything, Nostalgia, Skating, Smoking, and after, band!, idolverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-13 09:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16889553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samanthawithlute/pseuds/samanthawithlute
Summary: Two Times of Johnny in Chicago. Is it the same as it always was?





	1. beautiful and stoned

**Author's Note:**

> depression posting this even though I've posted this twice and deleted twice also because of depression. I just want someone to read it. 
> 
> it's not great. 
> 
> enjoy?

Bbbbring! Bbbbring! The shrill alarm clock snares its way into the slumbering boy’s head. The ache from landing badly on his back brings him swiftly to consciousness. He fucked up a simple kick flip after school and it was paying badly. Even with the pain, Johnny still preferred to be off bed and out. He kicked his sheets off, and groaning, stepped up from his low bed. For a moment he looked out onto the city before grabbing a towel and hopping into the shower. 

The hot water hurt, but Johnny had to move fast before the water turned cold. He splurted 2-N-1 shampoo and conditioner in his hair, dark roots and bleach bonde tips. While the shampoo was “setting” as he liked to call it, he took his slowly fragmenting bar of soap and washed his body. Roughly he cleans his pits and groin, and then weakly brushed over the rest of his body, to immediately rinse it off. The glob of shampoo has practically embedded itself in the top of his scalp as he precedes to wash it off without any attempt to do much else. 

The mirror has barely fogged up as Johnny exits the shower. He pulls his hair back, gives himself as sexy look, and feels his abs. Today, he thought, like every other day, was his day. Rifling through his floor Johnny grabs underwear, one of his many sleeveless shirts and his pair of ripped black jeans. Quietly he goes into his sock drawer and grabs his bag of weed and stuffs it in his pocket. Board is in hand and MP3 player is in ear, playing Minor Threat. 

Swerving through streets, gliding past pedestrians. He met up with Jay and Samantha at a breakfast joint. Jay got them all breakfast burritos and coffees. They went into the alley and hid as they ate and smoked Johnny’s weed. 

Sam coughed and asked “What are you up to today?”

“Uhhhh-” Johny stopped to take his hit “Well, later today my band is playing a show, but idk man, I’ll probably skate, I don’t know, hang with the dudes.” 

“Oh, that’s sweet, me and Jay are thinking of hitting the beach, perfect weather you know.”

Jay was currently taking his sixth and possibly largest hit. Johnny and Sam both looked at him to comment, but immediately he stuffed his burrito in his mouth. 

“Well, someone’s hungry, make sure he waits 30 minutes if you two are gonna be going to the beach, hahahehah.”

“Good to know, we’ll probably be going after lunch. Don’t want him to drown, do we?” Sam said that part a bit louder and a bit more in Jay’s direction. 

Jay just stared at them with glassy eyes. He tried to furrow his brows in anger, but the expression just wasn’t coming out right. 

“Hey, Jay, thanks for the burrito, man, but I’m gonna jet.” 

“Peace out Johnny.”

“Peace Out.”

Biting his burrito as he skates away, Johnny puts his focus on heading to the skate park. His hair was getting shaggier and it was blowing in the artificial wind his ride was generating. The weekend crowd of kids and tourists was out in effect. 

Johnny whizzed past families and teens with boomboxes. He felt free, the sun in his face. The summertime felt free, the repetition hadn’t become maddening yet. His band had grown, or well D’arcy’s band had grown. He was excited for the show tonight. 

Arriving at the skate park he noticed Mel, Billy, and Keith skating. Johnny went down and up the bowl to reach and greet them. 

“Howdy, John.” 

“Hey, Billy, and you two.”

“What brings you here today?”

“Same thing as everyday, I’m high and I wanna shred some board.” 

“Well, then let’s shred.” 

The four of them went zooming past each other and others. Doing tricks, riding the bowl, scraping elbows. Keith tried to impress Mel with a hardflip, but his feet fell short of touching down on the board and he instead landed on the board with his shins.

“FUCK.”

“Hey, quiet down, there a kids around here.”

“We’re kids too Johnny.”

“Younger kids, Keith.”

“Hey, Keith, I think I just saw a 13 year old do a hardflip.”

“Shut up Billy, 13 year olds they have more flexibility. They’re nimble.”

“Yeah man, Keith is a senior, he’s aging, gots bad bones.”

“Well, since you got your ass busted you wanna keep skating or get some lunch?”

Time had flew by surprisingly fast as they skated and the lunch hour had arrived. Once Johnny had asked the question of food Billy, Keith, and Mel could feel the emptiness in their stomachs. 

“Yeah, anyone here thinking Portillos?” Keith looked at everyone, asking them “Portillos?” in a sum voice, knowing everyone would agree with a nod. 

Each one of them gets on their boards and heads off in a stoner convoy. Everyone, of course ordered a jumbo hot dog with all the works, and together they ordered a large helping of cheese fries. They skated back to a park and ate in a more secluded area. 

“Hey John, you got anymore weed?”

“I might so happen to have some more, but would you be willing to offer me the last bight of your dog, dawg?”

“Yo, c’mon Billy, give him your dog and we can all smoke, just do it.”

“Yeah, please Billy, I need to smoke. And you got all these fries here too.”

“But, man, I want this dog.”

“Billy, I will buy you a new hot dog, just let Johnny have yours.”

“But, man, it’s my dog. My dog.”

“Just give it a rest.”

“Yeah Billy, that dog is mine.” Johnny then grabbed remainder of the dog and handed him a blunt. “And this is for your service.” 

Mel and Keith go a bit wild over the weed, maybe their over-exaggerating, or maybe they haven’t smoked in too long and really needed this. Johnny knew they were taking maybe a few too many hits during their pass at rotation, and maybe that they were passing him over in rotation, but he was ok. He had more. 

The last bite of the fries was finished by Billy and at this point the extra dog promised to him by Keith and Mel was far from his mind. They had finished another blunt and a breeze had been whistling on them ever since. 

Johnny was getting tired of sitting in one place. Even when sober he liked to keep a fast-ish pace to his life. He wondered if Sam and Jay were at the beach now. He then wondered if he could rope everyone else into going too. 

“So guys, we really gonna sit here all day? We can’t even watch the clouds with this tree cover.”

“And what do you suggest Johnny?”

“I don’t know. I met up with Jay and Sam and they were going to the beach, I mean on such a fine day, why not.”

“You don’t really present an effective argument John, but I really don’t have anything else going on today. How does everyone else feel about it?” 

Billy gestured toward Keith and Mel and took their half-hearted agreement as aggressive enthusiasm. 

Johnny took all of this in great stride and began thinking of logistics.

“How does everyone feel about their outfits vis-à-vis the beach, the sand and the water? Do we need to get bathing suits? Should we go to a store?”

“I think we’ll be fine in our clothes now. I don’t have any intention of getting wet, and a little sand never hurt me.” Mel finishes with a little flare and glare at Keith. 

“I must concur, it seems unnecessary to go anywhere but straight to the beach.”

“Alright, alright. If that’s okay with you Billy, then I say we blow this popsicle stand and skate off.”

Everyone kicked up their boards and got pushing. It was a bit of a way to Lake Michigan, but as they got closer the breeze from the mighty lake got stronger and their willpower increased. 

They walked the beach for 20 minutes, hoping to find Jay and Sam. Thankfully they went in the right direction and were able to meet up with them.

Jay began “So, you were able to come to the beach Johnny, and you brought some more friends too, eh.”

“Ha, yes I did. We were skating over near Wacker Street and after Keith took a nasty spill we got a bit bored and came over here.”

“Hey, it was not a nasty spill, and yes we got a bit bored.”

“Well I don’t see any swim trunks on you lot? You just gonna stay on the beach?”  
Johnny stepped up to answer this “We weren’t really planning on coming here, and Lake Michigan is cold as a witch’s tit Jay.”

Sam retorted “If it was really that cold how did we make it in earlier today? You guys -a- being real babies.” 

“HEY! We are not babies!” Keith was getting fired up, “I could totally do it, I’m just a little bit injured.”

“I thought it wasn’t a nasty spill? Which one is the lie Keith? C’mon show us.”

Mel and Sam added to Jay’s voice “Yeah c’mon Keith.”

“OK, ok. I’ll go in, but I won’t be the only one. Billy, Johnny, you have to come too!”

“Me and John don’t have anything to prove. Why should we have to go in too?”

Jay makes an offer “I picked up some weed before, whoever stays in the lake the longest wins a blunt.”

“I believe it’s whomever.” “Whoever whomever, the blunt stays the same and so does the challenge. So strip and start running!”

Johnny began removing his shirt at a leisurely pace while Billy and Keith scrambled to remove their clothing and head to the lake as fast as possible. Almost immediately Billy fell straight down on the sand, his pants twisted around his ankles and his shirt covering his face. He flopped around, while Jay, Mel, and Sam guffawed into oblivion. 

Momentarily Keith got his laugh too, but as he walked and stripped to his underwear he too got his pants stuck around his ankles and fell just like Billy. 

Johnny was calm and collected. Maybe it was the weed, but everyone felt he was pretty calm all the time. Steadily he walked, in his black underwear toward the lake. As an act of arrogance he purposely maneuvered to step over Billy and Keith on his walk. He reached the shore and waited patiently for the others to catch up so they could enter together. 

1 .. 2 .. 3 and they were in, hip-deep in the water. 

“Get in further!”

“Yeah, to your nipples guys!”  
“To the nips!”

Billy moved and as the water reached higher than his belly-button he bolted back towards the sand. Keith laughed but he knew that as he got further into the water he would lose his confidence. Johnny looked at Keith and smirked. He was moving faster than Keith and he could sense the apprehension coming from his opponent. 

Johnny was well past his nipples now and Keith was getting worried. He wanted that blunt. But Johnny just kept looking at him and smirking. Was he immune to the cold? Was he a freak superhuman. Keith couldn’t fathom the dissonance between his freezing and shriveling body and Johnny’s unflustered smile. He had to be superhuman.

The rest watched from afar. From their distance it seemed like a battle of attrition. Johnny and Kieth staring each other down, daring the other to just leave. From the water though, Keith wasn’t even sure Johnny was thinking about him. He was smiling toward him, but was it at him? His overthinking had distracted him, but not for long. He now realized how cold he was. And he realized that he could not continue. 

And then there was one. Keith bolted out of the water and Johnny was victorious. Once Keith reached land Johnny began a leisurely walk out of the lake. It wasn’t quite apparent whether the water was dragging his feet or he was dragging them out. He kept his cool all the way back, laid on a towel, dried his hands and face, and took his blunt. 

They all dried off and continued to lay in the sun ’til their organs started baking under the hot summer heat. 

“Hey ya’ll I gotta head back to my house to prepare for the show tonight.”

Johnny then got up and put his shirt and pants back on, he could feel the sand everywhere. His drive to get home fast had increased, even more than the fact that his band’s show was getting closer and closer. 

“Peace out John, I think we might be going soon too, I think my skin is starting to braise.”  
“Oh Johnny, where is your show tonight?” Sam rocked Jay from what seemed to be slumber “Me and Jay are thinking of going.”

“It’s at the Hideout, between Kennedy and the river. Thanks if you do come.”

Mel then nudged Keith and he spoke up as well “Oh, and we’ll try and make it to.”

“Alright, well I’ll see you soon then.”

~~

Johnny took a quick shower with vigorous scrubbing to rid himself of sand. He picked out a different sleeveless shirt, this one adorned with stars. The black jeans went back on. Johnny went back to his bathroom and smeared his hair with gel pushing it back. He grabbed the blunt he won earlier, his drumsticks, an extra shirt, and some cash for the bus. 

He took the bus to D’arcy’s house where they practiced and all their equipment was kept. D’arcy lead her band in a short rehearsal and pep talk. Nicole, the bass guitarist and Pat, rhythm guitarist and owner of the SUV that would transport their equipment, stayed back with D’arcy for a bit to chat, but Johnny got to work squishing the equipment into the SUV. 

Their ride was fast, listening to punk songs too loud for the speakers to handle and screaming the lyrics too loud to care. Johnny and Pat began to set up the equipment and D’arcy and Nicole talked to the management. 

They’d played The Hideout before but usually on weekdays or as part of many playing. Tonight they were actually the quote-unquote headliners. Johnny felt that D’arcy was nervous. She made them go over the setlist a bunch and they had a tenser practice too. But Johnny knew it’d go well. They always played well, all they had to do now was play. 

Shortly before the attendees started filtering in Johnny grabbed a Miller and calmly drank it up and walked to backstage. 

Chatter began to fill the building, it was growing and creeping into the backstage area. Drinks were served and everyone found their seats. 

Lights dimmed and then D’arcy lead her band out. One by one they take the stage and their position on it. Johnny sat comfortably in his seat and began a countdown with his drumsticks.

“3, 2, 1!”

D’arcy’s growling vocals kicked them off and then they were gone. Each member playing faster, harsher, louder than the next. Daring each other into a strange fierce competiton. 

Beat after beat, note after note. They tore the house down. 

Johnny saw Jay and Sam, Keith and Mel, and even Billy too. After a few songs they were harder to spot. He had worked up an impressive amount of sweat, his hair had become unslicked and dripped down over his eyes. His playing never slowed though. Sweat jumped at each pound of the drum. 

After their repertoire of originals and covers they left the stage. Johnny removed his sweat-drenched shirt and replaced it with his backup. He walked back out to the bar and standing area to greet his friends. 

“Hey, glad you guys could make it. I’ll buy you all a beer. How’d you enjoy a show?” 

“John, not my usual taste but it was nice to see you play.”

“Me and Keith really enjoyed it Johnny.” 

Sam nudged Jay to speak up “Well, Sammy here feels it was a bit loud, but I LOVED it.”

“Nice, nice, nice, thank you everyone. And here are those beers, Blue Moons for Keith and Mel, and Miller Lites for the rest of us.”

The venue quickly morphed into an afterparty of sorts. Johnny mingled through, drinking more beers and talking with his friends and others. Throughout the party Johnny had a wordless dalliance with another fella in the bar. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt as if there was some type of tension. Johnny was having fun and hoped that the stares he was giving the other guy would lead to something fun. 

Then suddenly Johnny was gifted a drink, an old fashioned. It was from the guy who had been staring back at him through the night. He wandered over to meet him.

“Hey, thank you for the drink.”

“Well, let me thank you for the excellent performance.”

“Ha no problem, I’m just a drummer anyways, D’arcy leads the whole show anyways.”

“Oh, but I was focused on you.”

“Do you wanna get out of here? I have a blunt we could smoke it outside and maybe do something else.”

“It would be my pleasure.”

“You know, today has been a good day. How about for you?”  
“Oh I think so.”


	2. misunderstood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny goes home :(

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part 2
> 
> enjoy?

Johnny had barely awoken once the wheels touched the ground. He had landed in Chicago. 

The wheels of time had aligned and he was able to return home for a short break, and his flight was the perfect time, he would barely feel any jet-lag. He stretched his arms and collected some of his trash, placing everything he had out, including Looking for Alaska, the book he was attempting to read before he dozed off. All of his luggage was in the overhead bin and once the line of people exiting reached him he stood up. Sitting in a window seat may have been enjoyable, but hunching over to get out of it was not. 

The soft glow of the cabin helped Johnny easily adjust from the flight and his rest. He gave the steward his regards and set out into the airport. He grabbed something quickly from Au Bon Pain and went downstairs to the taxi service. 

He found a cab quickly and was off to his parents home, the same one he grew up in. 

“You visiting or what?”“Visiting, but I grew up here. Seeing my parents for a few days.”  
“Where you visiting from, eh?”  
“I live and work in Korea.”

“What do you do there.”

“I do a lot of different things, but mainly I DJ a late night radio show, other stuff here and there.”

“Is it a good life?”

“Most of the time it is. I miss my parents. I miss Chicago.”

“Well, have a good stay, and try to bring some of Chicago out there to Korea, make us proud eh.”  
“Will do.”

Seeing his home, right in front of his eyes for the first time in too long was a hard sight. Johnny set down his bag to take it in for a moment. He’d taken breaks and vacations before, but this felt like the first time he truly had a rest. 

He went up to the grey door and knocked. No one answered. For a moment Johnny was worried. Had his parents moved. Then he realized.

He had planned this trip as a surprise for his parents. It was a weekday. His parents, of course, would have been any work. It was just one bag, so he could carry it around if he needed, but he went and looked for the spare key. 

He actually found it, in the same place it used to be when he lived here. It felt weird. Like time had been frozen since the day he left. 

He went in and dropped his bag in his old room. He never told his parents that he wanted it to stay the same or anything, but year after year they kept it the same. The only additions were a couple of boxes of storage, Johnny assumed. He sat on his bed and breathed in the air. It felt the same, but he knew that it was different. Chicago had changed. The neighborhood had changed. Even his home had changed. They were minor things, but had added up over the years. New microwave. New oven. Different dish towels. He thought about this on the bed. His curiosity was biting him. He wanted to know how much had changed. 

He thought about places to go. That breakfast place he always went to, The Hideout, the skatepark, the beach. He wondered what he’d realize was different about those places. 

He got up from the bed and looked at the his phone, thinking he might need to look up bus routes and locations. But he stopped himself. Things might have changed, but he wanted to see if some things were the same. He went on his gut that the bus routes were the same and walked to the one he used to take deeper into the city. He gave himself a timer. To be home after 6:30 to surprise his parents. 

Johnny felt lucky when he saw the bus stop where it had always been. He felt luckier when he looked the map on the wall of the stop and saw the line go right past his destination, the breakfast spot. 

The buses were new, new to him. They had a strange quality to him, being worn down, but entirely new. The ride was shorter than he thought. He looked around for the restaurant but so many places on the blocks looked unfamiliar. He slowly realized that his favorite place wasn’t there. It was part of the changes that happen when you leave a place. He wasn’t surprised. Things can’t stay the same forever. He’d accepted that when he left his home for a country thousands of miles from home. 

There were more places he wanted to visit anyway. He wanted to get a move on with his trip of memories. Johnny decided to walk to the skate park, stopping at some fast food place to get a quick lunch. 

The skate park was the same. New graffiti, new stickers. But it was the same. Same concrete. Same curves. 

The people were different. Johnny had kept up with the changing styles of the world. He had to for his job, he had to change too. But it was still surprising to see all these kids looking so different than him and his friends. It was weird that they were kids too. He used to be those kids, not one of the adult passers-by. 

Johnny sat down at a bench and wondered what his next step would be. It was getting closer to his phone’s timer. There were so many places that his teenaged self considered integral to his person. 

He looked through his phone. Went scrolling down his contacts and wondered who was still here of his old friends. He was pretty sure Billy moved away, but was confident Jay and Keith still lived in Chicago. 

He wasn’t sure about D’arcy, Nicole, and Pat. His decision to leave for South Korea had not been taken well by them. Drummer’s weren’t in hard supply, but they still felt betrayed. He was never that close of friends to them, but they all felt they had respect for each other, musical respect. Johnny knew his forays into dance and song weren’t as well receipted by his friends. Deciding to abandon them for song and dance hit hardly for a lot of them, but mostly for D’arcy and the band. 

D’arcy had, officially speaking, kicked him out of the band when he told them, but he was the one who left. He tried to talk to D’arcy and Nicole and Pat for some time after that. He didn’t really get anywhere. Responses were dry and uninviting. They took longer to reply and Johnny tried texting them less and less. 

After a while he stopped wondering about them. He no longer cared if they had found a new drummer, if they were still playing shows. If they knew where he was now. 

Too many people he was a celebrity, but he wasn’t sure if his bandmates ever learned. None of them were ever in to pop music, and they hadn’t been close friends with people who knew him well enough to learn of his fame. 

This hadn’t mattered to Johnny in a long time. But being here, seeing their names still in his contacts felt weird. If they saw him would they know who he had become. He didn’t want to know. 

He texted Jay instead. 

JOHNNY: Long time, no text :) got off some time and tried to surprise my parents by visiting Chicago, got a bit of free time before I see them, wanna meet up at The Hideout?

Johnny put the phone in his pocket and headed to the bus that would take him to The Hideout. 

He was about halfway through the bus ride when he got a message. 

JAY: It’s nice that you’re trying to do something for your parents, but I won’t have the time to come into Chicago until the weekend. I live near Peoria now. Will you still be here?

Johnny kind of expected it. People were busy and even though Johnny’s few days here were a special thing to him, it didn’t mean other people were going to work there way out of it. 

JOHNNY: No, I have to leave Friday afternoon, tight schedule. Let’s try to talk more.

JAY: Damn, man. I play your music to my kid sometime, I think she likes it.

JOHNNY: Thank you for that. See you one day.

“Kid” made Johnny’s heart fall. He knew Jay had had a child recently, he saw the photos, but it still took him out of it. Before he decided on South Korea, and even when he had, he had imagined having a kid. The reality hit eventually and year after year of training it became more apparent that his life he had fantasized about as a child would be put on hold. 

Idol life had been one of his dreams too, but of a different kind. And to be brutally honest with himself, it wasn’t turning out the way he had fantasized either. 

Lost in thought, Johnny almost missed his stop. The bump of a pothole jostled him and pressed the button to stop himself as close to The Hideout as he could get. 

The Hideout had been a mainstay of the Chicago music scene, and unsurprisingly it stayed the same. Johnny was one of the only people in the bar. It had was not yet five, but he still decided to order a drink. 

“Can I get a Rob Roy?”

“Sure thing sir, may I see your ID?”

Johnny flashed his ID and the bartender got to work, quickly mixing scotch and vermouth. Johnny looked at his phone as he waited. 

“Here you are sir. What brings you here at this early hour?”

“Visiting old places, well old in that I used to go here when I was younger.”

“I hope you didn’t come here when you were you too much younger, eh bad reputation that’d be.”  
“I played in a band most of the times I was here. I can’t say I helped your reputation, but I was here on legitimate pretenses.”

“Well that’s good. Why you visiting old places anyway?”

“Home for the first time in a while. Don’t get too take many breaks.” 

“I hope you can enjoy your time.”

Johnny hadn’t thought about enjoying his time. He knew he would love seeing his parents, but he wasn’t sure about enjoying it. He didn’t have time to think about that. The company told him he had these days available for personal days and he just jumped on it. He wondered now how going back would effect him. Would he go back to Korea missing home more? Was he doing this for him or just the sense that he needed to. 

Johnny knew he needed to do this, not just for his parents. He needed this. Home would always be a place he missed, but seeing it and reminding himself of it. He needed to see it, not just as a memory or an idea, but a physical place that held so many of his emotions. 

His phone buzzed and he realized he had to get home. His old home. 

He left cash on the bar and left, eyes peering for the bus stop. 

The trip was quick and Johny let the sound of the bus be his background music. 

His parents weren’t there yet as he walked up to the house for the second time today. He decided to wait outside and surprise them there. 

~~

After the storm of surprise he gave his parents they had all settled down and Johnny was helping his mom cook dinner. They talked about his job, his mom nagged him about getting rest and how he “Should have told us you were coming!” His dad joked about dating and asked him if he had saw a nature program from six months ago. 

It felt like old times. 

After dinner they all had a glass of wine and watched the aforementioned nature program. Dad was out as soon as the eggs began to hatch in the documentary. 

“Johnny, it’s so nice having you here even if for a few days. It’s hard to check on you all the way in Korea.”

“I know mom, I know.”

“Just take care of yourself Johnny. Don’t let yourself get too tired.”

“I know, I know.”

“We love you, and now off to bed.”

Johnny meandered to his room and got undressed. He saw a snap from Ten, it must be morning.

He looked at the video, Ten yawning, and smiled. He sent a snap back, “good night, have a nice day bby <3” and the drifted to sleep.


End file.
